Today, instruments within the field of chemistry/biotechnology field exhibit mainly three different types of instrument panels, namely either a number of keys and knobs but no indicator, or a digital indicator and a number of keys and, possibly, knobs, or an alphanumerical indicator and a number of keys and, possibly, knobs. It is to be understood that the respective key is intended for switching/operating a corresponding switch.
The keys are either general in the form of a numerical keyboard or dedicated to a certain function. By means of the knobs, different values are set and, normally, the knobs have fixed setting ranges, i.e. can be rotated from a minimum value to a maximum value.
Today, all different instruments have their own panel.
Therefore, each time a user starts using a new instrument, he/she has to learn the instrument panel which is unique for the instrument in question. If several instruments are interconnected into a system, this will be quite complicated to handle since the different instruments in the system exhibit different panels. Therefore, such systems have to be characterized as user-unfriendly.
From an ergonomic point of view, it is also disadvantageous with keyboards on normal instrument panels since it is difficult to press the keys on vertical keyboards.
With unique panels for all different instruments, problems also arise in connection with the development of new instruments since the development time will be longer each time a new panel has to be designed and tested. Moreover, it is more expensive to produce instruments with different panels.
As examples of prior art instrument panels, reference is made to EP-A2-0 188 162 (video tape recorder system), EP-A1-0 347 686 (entertainment electronics), and EP-A1-0 504 514 (multimeter).